The Conundrum Of Time
by Unaltered
Summary: Ruby isn't sure what happened. One moment, she was there, staring at a scene that made her heart pound and her throat tighten, eyes wetting with tears. The next moment, it was thirty seconds before that very scene had occurred, and Ruby was presented the chance to fix it. (the life is strange time travel fix-it nobody asked for but got anyways)
1. Chapter 1

Ruby wasn't exactly sure what happened. One moment, she was staring at Penny. Her body lay in pieces, torn apart, her swords scattered everywhere. Pyrrha had been standing there, eyes wide and filled with horror. She had felt her own eyes burn with tears, felt her own chest cave in with emotion-

And then, just like that, the scene was gone.

Pyrrha and Penny were fighting, Penny knocking Pyrrha's weapons out of her hands. She could hear Mercury shouting in confusion somewhere far off, but she couldn't hear him. Couldn't hear anything over the roar of the crowd.

 _What just happened?_

She couldn't comprehend anything at the moment, mind racing at a million miles an hour. _What was that?_

Then Penny raised her hands, her swords fanning out behind her, and Ruby saw Pyrrha stumble backwards, eyes widening in horror.

Instinct carried Ruby forward-well, maybe not instinct, but _something_ caused her legs to move, made her rocket forward and barrel towards Pyrrha, who's face then took on a very determined expression. Before she could do anything, however, Ruby knocked her to the ground, screaming "STOP!" and she heard Pyrrha gasp out in shock beneath her. Penny's swords lowered and she cocked her head to the side curiously, lips tugging upwards.

"Ruby, is that you?" She called, though her voice was barely heard over the noises of the crowd. A few peals of laughter, but mostly sounds of confusion. Ruby rolled off of Pyrrha, suddenly out of breath. Her chest ached for more oxygen, and her head pounded with pain, as if a hundred Nevermores were scratching at her brain.

" _Ruby!_ " A voice shouted at her, but Ruby couldn't open her eyes. Everything hurt too much. The noises of the crowd were drowning her. The image of Penny's body scattered all over the arena floor was burned into her brain.

 _What just happened?_

And that was the last thing Ruby Rose remembered thinking before passing out in front of thousands of people.


	2. Chapter 2

When Ruby woke up, she was in the infirmary, alone. Someone had dressed her in a gray shirt and sweatpants, which she noticed immediately to be rather uncomfortable. Tears were streaming down her face, but she didn't know why. Had she been crying in her sleep?

With a grunt, she sat up, bringing one hand up to rub at her eyes. Her head had a splitting headache, and her stomach gave an anxious churn, as if about to deliver her lunch back out the way it came in. It was quiet, and judging by one of the high-placed windows, it was night time.

Why was she in the infirmary?

Then it all came back to Ruby in a wave of new pain.

 _Penny and Pyrrha, at the tournament, they'd been-Penny had-_

Kicking the sheets off her legs, Ruby jumped out of the cot she was in, nearly tripping over herself, legs feeling like jelly. Penny-Penny had been-

 _Penny was okay._

Ruby fell to her knees, as more memories came to her. No, Penny hadn't been torn apart-she'd been fine, right? Because Ruby had run at Pyrrha could do anything.

But why had Ruby run at Pyrrha in the first place?

Nothing made sense. Ruby pressed the palms of her hands against her eyelids, giving a low groan. If only her head would stop hurting, then maybe she could make figure out what had happened.

Fighting a level 3 infestation of Grimm was _less_ painful than this.

"Miss Rose?" A voice asked, and Ruby looked up, squinting at the person who'd entered the room. It was a tall man with hair the color of wheat and a deer's tail poking out from his scrubs. Ruby vaguely remembered him to be the school nurse, but she didn't know his name.

"Hello," Ruby said, and was surprised to find out that her voice was relatively steady and clear. She figured it'd be weaker with how much she felt like total garbage. "Dr...Uh...Top?"

"Dr. Taupe," The man said, before holding a hand out, "Do you want to stand up?"

"Yes, please." Ruby was pulled to her feet, and it took her a moment to gather herself. Where were the others? Surely Yang would be here right now, or, at the very least, her Uncle Qrow. As if reading her mind, Dr. Taupe said,

"Your team is being questioned right now."

"What? Why?" Ruby asked, her eyes going wide. What did they do? Who was questioning them? Dr. Taupe gestured to the cot, as if silently asking Ruby to sit down, but Ruby didn't want to. She felt antsy, her spine crawling. She was confused, and her head hurt, but that didn't matter-what mattered is that her teammates were okay and not getting accused of something she did-

 _Why_ did _she do that?_

"They're being asked questions about you," Dr. Taupe folded his hands neatly in front of him, "If you showed any signs of distress before the match, if you had planned this. You did disrupt an internationally televised event, after all."

"I did, didn't I?" Ruby stared down at her feet, feeling her face redden slightly. She'd dove out of nowhere and knocked Pyrrha to the ground, in front of thousands of people-people there and people watching it on TV-but she'd done it for a good reason! She'd been-She'd been trying to save Penny-

Because Penny had been torn apart. Penny had been broken. Penny...

"Penny!" Ruby exclaimed, head jerking back up, feeling a small swell of panic within her, "Penny's okay, right?! She's fine?!"

"Yes, Miss Polendina is doing well." Dr. Taupe frowned at her. "Why does it-"

"What about Pyrrha?" Ruby glanced around, as if expecting to see Pyrrha there, or something telling her that everyone was okay. "Pyrrha's okay too, right? And Mercury! Something's weird with Mercury, he was hurt, but then-"

"Miss Rose," Dr. Taupe interrupted, "I suggest you sit down. You are obviously very confused, and possibly hallucinating. You need to-"

"Give her a break, doc," A familiar voice cut him off, and Ruby glanced over Dr. Taupe's shoulder to see her Uncle Qrow standing there, hands in his pockets, "You're stressing her out. Don't you have another kid to be tending to?"

Dr. Taupe scowled at the shorter man, before stalking away, hands clenching at his sides. As soon as Dr. Taupe was out of sight, Ruby bounded across the room and wrapped her arms around her uncle, hugging him tightly. There were tears pricking at the corners of her eyes-from confusion, from the pain in her head, from knowing that _something_ had happened, but she couldn't pinpoint what.

"Whoa, pipsqueak," Uncle Qrow patted the top of her head as she drew away, "It's okay."

"I don't know what's happening," Ruby sniffed, tugging at the gray shirt she was dressed in. Her mind was in a jumbled mess-trying to tell her two different things that happened at once. One part of her brain told her that everything was fine, and that Pyrrha and Penny were okay. Another part of her brain told her that Penny was gone, and that Pyrrha was hurting, horrified, at what she'd done.

"Me neither, kiddo, and that's because you're going to have to tell me what happened." Qrow sat down across from Ruby, but Ruby didn't sit down, and he didn't ask her to. He gave her an easy look, making her feel a lot less intimidated than she had with the nurse. Ruby took in a deep breath, before saying,

"I just know that I saw Penny, but she was torn apart. I _know_ I saw that. But then everything was okay, and I thought-maybe I just imagined it? But then it looked like it was going to actually happen-so I tried to get Pyrrha to stop."

"So Pyrrha tore Penny apart?" Her uncle's expression twitched, as if trying to remain passive, but there was a hint of something in his eyes that Ruby couldn't decipher.

"Yes, but it was an accident!" Ruby meshed her fingers together nervously, anxiety bubbling inside her, "Pyrrha's semblance is polarity, and Penny's-"

Ruby then stopped. Penny's secret wasn't hers to share, but she didn't know how to explain to Uncle Qrow without giving it away. However, he just gestured for her to continue, so Ruby cleared her throat and resumed.

"So Penny, she...She was broken, but then she wasn't. I knew it was going to happen, so I tried to stop Pyrrha before it did!" Ruby's speech got faster as she continued. "And Mercury-his leg was shot by Yang, he was hurt, but he was back there with me, he was _attacking me,_ and he was walking like his leg was okay!"

Ruby began pacing back and forth, mind racing. Saying it out loud seemed to have relieved her head from the pressure being applied to it, as if saying it for someone to hear would make more sense. She then stopped, eyes going wide, and whirled around to face her uncle.

"Mercury! We have to find him, he knows what's going on! He was back there with me, beneath the stands!"

"They've already looked there," Uncle Qrow said calmly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, "They investigated back there to see if someone had provoked you into doing something, or if you were hiding anything back there. The area was empty, save for a janitor or two. They did find your scroll, though."

Qrow reached into his pocket and extracted her scroll, which had slight scorch marks near the top. He ran his thumb over them, eyes narrowing.

"Have these always been here?"

"No, Mercury shot it out of my hands because I tried to call for help," Ruby explained as she took it into her hands. She tried to turn it on, but it didn't work. She hoped it had only run out of battery and wasn't broken. Ruby finally sat down on her abandoned cot, sorting through everything in her brain.

Mercury hadn't been there when they checked, so he'd probably left. Ruby hadn't been there to witness when Pyrrha had accidentally torn Penny, and had only saw the scattered pieces of the aftermath. And yet, she had somehow knew when it would happen. Had somehow been there witnessing it about to happen. She recalled Mercury's shouts of confusion-was she somehow teleported to the scene in the midst of running from him?

Or had that all been some sort of hallucination?

Something had been off with Emerald, too. She should've been with Mercury-but she was there, watching Pyrrha and Penny's fight with a strange look on her face.

 _What's going on?_

She'd asked this of Mercury, only for him to smirk at her. It still left a chilly feeling inside, and her confusion only made it worse. She must've hallucinated, or maybe even saw the future. That makes sense, right? She was absolutely _sure_ future vision was a thing, albeit much more complex and multi-layered than simply _future vision._

"Uncle Qrow, I...I don't understand what's going on." Ruby raised her eyes to find his. Her uncle's eyes were analytical, but meeting hers, they softened slightly. He gave a low hum and sat back in his chair, glancing upwards, to the ceiling.

"It'll be okay, Rubes," He said, but Ruby didn't feel very comforted by his words.

* * *

Cinder was mad. Mad at her. Mad at Mercury.

"I'm sorry," Emerald said for what felt like the hundredth time, "I didn't anticipate her coming, it threw everything off-balance-"

"I realize that." Cinder cut her off, molten eyes cold. "You did your best. Even if it was foiled by a little girl."

Emerald took a breath and bowed her head, anger welling up inside her. She'd had it. She'd been working hard, so hard her head had started hurting-to make that Pyrrha girl see-

"But you said you had her," Cinder turned towards Mercury, who was sitting against the wall, one leg crossed over the other. Cinder's anger was never loud. It was calm, the calm before a storm that always tended to get Emerald worked up.

That was scarier than a loud anger.

"I did," Mercury said, eyebrows drawing together angrily, "She was right there, but then she wasn't-"

"Are you suggesting she somehow teleported out of your sight?" Cinder turned her back to Mercury and began pacing the room, shoulders stiff. "Everything is off, now. The girl was supposed to be slaughtered. It was supposed to generate _fear._ But now, that's ruined, and we have to work differently."

Cinder took a pause, a deep breath, and said,

"Which means we all have to disappear."

"I can do this," Emerald said, pushing herself off the wall and staring at Cinder, "Let me try again. I can make it look like an accident-"

"There will be no again." Cinder hushed her. "We are no longer students of Mistral. We are no longer staying here at Beacon. We start working completely in the shadows, now."

Mercury gave a scoff and muttered beneath his breath. "As if we weren't doing that before."

"I had to tell Adam Taurus to call off the White Fang. The fear that should've drawn the Grimm hadn't occurred, so we had to change _all_ of our plans," Cinder shot at him, " _After_ I had already changed them again _for this._ "

Cinder continued pacing, silent, cold, and Emerald exchanged a look with Mercury behind her back. They didn't know exactly what had happened-they were still piecing this together-how had Ruby known what was going on? How had she been able to prevent Pyrrha from acting on Emerald's illusion?

"The Ruby girl," Cinder finally said after a while. She had stopped pacing, and was currently looking back at the younger two with her arms crossed. "She saw Mercury. She knew what would happen. She _prevented_ it from happening."

"Are you suggesting we-?" Emerald took a breath, mind racing, before continuing, "Are you suggesting we get rid of her?"

"No." Cinder answered. "We will not be at Beacon any longer. Chances are, she's already told someone about Mercury."

"Her team," Emerald said at once, "Which can be elim-"

"Or that Huntsman," Mercury cut Emerald off, eyes finding hers, "Who can not be eliminated so easily. It looks like she knows him."

"We will not be eliminating anybody. We'll have to work around this. Roman Torchwick was released from captivity tonight, although not in the fashion we'd intended. Neo managed to deploy an emergency escape pod after knocking out the crew members. It'll be awhile before it's discovered he's escaped."

The tone in Cinder's voice held a note of finality. "We will lay low for awhile and continue working with Torchwick, stealing Dust and sabotaging Atlasian weapons."

"Yes ma'am," Emerald and Mercury said together, but exchanged looks once again when Cinder made her way down the dark and desolate hallway they'd secluded to themselves. They both had doubt in their eyes.


End file.
